History | |
---|---|
Nazi Germany | |
Name | ES Orizaba |
Namesake | Orizaba, Mexico |
Owner | Hamburg America Line [1] |
Operator | Hamburg America Line |
Port of registry | Hamburg [1] |
Route | Hamburg – Caribbean |
Builder | Deutsche Werft, Hamburg [1] |
Launched | 11 February 1939 |
Completed | 1939 [1] |
In service | 1939 |
Out of service | 26 February 1940 [2] |
Homeport | Hamburg |
Fate | Ran aground, 26 February 1940 [2] |
General characteristics | |
Tonnage | 4,354 GRT [1] |
Length | 398.3 ft (121.4 m) [1] |
Beam | 55.7 ft (17.0 m) [1] |
Depth | 22.8 ft (6.9 m) [1] |
Propulsion |
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Sensors and processing systems | |
Notes |
SS Orizaba (or "ES Orizaba", with "ES" standing for "Electroschiff" German : electric ship) was a Hamburg America Line (HAPAG) cargo ship that was built in Hamburg 1939 [1] and wrecked off northern Norway in 1940.
Orizaba was built for trade between Germany and the Caribbean, and was named accordingly. Orizaba is a city in the Mexican province of Veracruz, on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico.
Orizaba was built in Hamburg and completed in 1939. [1] She was one of three sister ships launched in 1939 for HAPAG. She and her sister Antilla were built by Deutsche Werft in Finkenwerder, Hamburg, [1] [3] while their sister Arauca was built by Bremer Vulkan in Bremen-Vegesack. [4]
Orizaba and her sisters had turbo-electric transmission. [1] [3] [4] Each ship had two oil-fired high pressure boilers that fed a single AEG turbo generator. [1] [3] [4] This produced current for an AEG electric propulsion motor that drove a single propeller shaft. [1] [3] [4] This was a sophisticated propulsion system that required skilled operation. Both Antilla and Arauca suffered technical failures on their maiden voyages to the Caribbean. [5] [6]
Orizaba and her sisters each had direction finding equipment and an echo sounding device. [1] [3] [4]
In August 1939, a week before Germany invaded Poland, Germany signalled all her merchant ships to leave main shipping lanes, signal only in code, and to disguise their ships and return to Germany as soon as possible. [5] Three days later Germany ordered that all merchant ships which could not reach Germany within four days should seek shelter in neutral ports. [5] Orizaba was among a number that took refuge in Vigo [7] in Spain, which was officially neutral.
On the night of 9/10 February 1940, a night with minimum moonlight, [8] the German merchant ships Arucas, Morea, Orizaba, Rostock, Wahehe and Wangoni left Vigo to try to run the Allied blockade of Germany. [7] In an attempt to avoid French Navy and Royal Navy patrols their course was to be out into the Atlantic and then north past neutral Iceland into the Norwegian Sea, where they would try to use neutral Norwegian territorial waters to reach the North Sea and then neutral Danish territorial waters to reach Germany.
On 11 February a Royal Navy destroyer captured Morea and a French sloop captured Rostock. [2] On 21 February the Royal Navy cruiser HMS Manchester and two destroyers captured Wahehe southeast of Iceland as a prize ship. [2] On 26 February 1940 Orizaba ran aground off the coast of Troms in northern Norway. [2] The Finnish cargo ship Margareta rescued survivors. [2] [9] [10] On 3 March the cruiser HMS York intercepted Arucas southeast of Iceland. [11] Arucas' crew scuttled her and York rescued 39 of them, but another three were lost. [11]
Only Wangoni made it back to Germany. On 28 February the submarine HMS Triton intercepted her off Kristiansand in southern Norway, but the cargo ship escaped under cover of darkness and on 1 March made port at Hamburg. [2]
Orizaba remains a wreck in the Norwegian Sea.
When she foundered, the ship had mercury aboard. [12] Accordingly, in 2008 Norway's National Institute of Nutrition and Seafood Research (NIFES) on behalf of the Norwegian Food Safety Authority tested cusk, blue mussel and whelk in the vicinity of the wreck for levels of heavy metals. [12]
NIFES found that mercury levels in all three species were within European Food Safety Authority limits and that the levels in cusk and blue mussel were no higher than normal for those species. [12] However, NIFES found that in blue mussel the concentration of cadmium was higher than normal, and in whelk it was between two and three times higher than levels normally found on the Norwegian coast. [12] NIFES found also that whelk accumulate cadmium more than do mussel. [12]
The SS City of Flint was a cargo ship of a type known colloquially as a Hog Islander, due to it being built at the Hog Island Shipyard, Philadelphia by American International Shipbuilding for the United States Shipping Board (USSB), Emergency Fleet Corporation. City of Flint was named to honor the citizens of Flint, Michigan for their effort in Liberty Loan drives during World War I.
Tango Maru (丹後丸) was a cargo motor ship that was built in Germany in 1926 and sunk off the coast of Bali in 1944. She was launched as Rendsburg for the Deutsch-Australische Dampfschiffs-Gesellschaft (DADG), which in 1926 merged with Hamburg-Amerikanische Packetfahrt-Actien-Gesellschaft (HAPAG).
SS Cambridge was a refrigerated steam cargo liner that was built in Germany for the Hamburg America Line. She was launched in 1916 as Vogtland, but after the 1919 Treaty of Versailles the United Kingdom took her as war reparations and sold her to the Federal Steam Navigation Company, who renamed her Cambridge. She operated between Britain and Australasia until 1940, when a German mine sank her off the coast of Australia.
SS Antilla was a Hamburg America Line (HAPAG) cargo ship that was launched in 1939 and scuttled in 1940.
USS Saturn (AK-49) was a German cargo ship, built in 1939 as ES Arauca. In 1941 before the US entered World War II, US authorities seized her and started converting her into a United States Navy stores ship. She was the sole ship of the US Navy's Saturn class. She was laid up in 1946 and scrapped in 1972.
SS Adolph Woermann was a German steam ocean liner built in 1922 by Blohm & Voss in Hamburg for the shipping lines Woermann-Linie (WL) and German East Africa Line and named after German merchant, ship owner and politician Adolph Woermann, and the fourth ship of the same name.
SS Donau was a Norddeutscher Lloyd (NDL) refrigerated cargo steamship that was built in Germany in 1929 and sunk in occupied Norway in 1945. In the 1930s she sailed mostly between Bremen and the West Coast of the United States via the Panama Canal.
SS Assyrian was a cargo ship that was built in Hamburg for German owners in 1914, transferred to British owners in 1920 as war reparations and sunk by a U-boat in 1940. She was launched as MS Fritz, and when she changed owners in 1920 she was renamed MS Assyrian. She had been built as a motor ship but in 1925 she was converted to a steamship and became SS Assyrian.
Cap Tafelneh was a 2,266 GRT cargo ship which was built in 1920 by Burntisland Shipbuilding Company Ltd, Fife, Scotland. She was built for Joseph Lasry as Sydney Lasry. In 1931, she was sold to Compagnie Générale Transatlantique and renamed Ariège. In 1938 she was sold to Société Anonyme de Gerance D'Armement and renamed Cap Tafelneh. She was bombed and sunk at Dunkirk in 1940.
Wahehe was a 4,690 GRT cargo ship which was built in 1922 as Wadigo by Reiherstieg Schiffswerfte und Maschinenfabrik, Hamburg for Woermann Linie AG. She was converted to a refrigerated cargo liner in about 1934.
I.P. Suhr was a 1,649 GRT cargo ship that was built in 1926 by Ostseewerft AG, Stettin as Siegmund for German owners. After a sale in 1929 she was renamed Thielbek. A further sale in 1939 saw her renamed Ingrid Traber. She was seized by the Allies in May 1945, passed to the Ministry of War Transport (MoWT) and renamed Empire Condover. In 1946, she was passed to the Norwegian Government and renamed Fornes. She was sold into merchant service in 1948 and renamed I.P. Suhr, serving until December 1950 when she capsized and sank.
SS Rio de Janeiro was a German cargo steamship owned by the Hamburg Südamerikanische shipping company and registered in Hamburg. She was built as Santa Ines in 1914 and renamed Rio de Janeiro in 1921. Until World War II she carried passengers and freight between Germany and South America.
Empire Endurance was a 8,514 GRT steam cargo liner that was built in 1928 as Alster by Deschimag Werk Vulkan, Hamburg, Germany for the shipping company Norddeutscher Lloyd. In the years leading up to the Second World War Alster carried cargo and passengers between Germany and Australia. After the outbreak of war she was requisitioned by the Kriegsmarine for use as a supply ship.
SS Aguila was a British steam passenger liner. She was built in Dundee in 1917 and was sunk by enemy action in the North Atlantic in 1941. She belonged to Yeoward Line, which carried passengers and fruit between Liverpool, Lisbon, Madeira and the Canary Islands.
HMS Teviot Bank was a Bank Line steamship that was built in England in 1938 as the cargo ship Teviotbank. In the Second World War she was a Royal Navy auxiliary minelayer. By 1956 a Panamanian company had bought her and renamed her Nella. She was scrapped in Italy in 1971.
SS Santa Fé was a German refrigerated cargo steamship. She is now a Black Sea shipwreck and part of her cargo is of interest to marine archaeologists.
SS Bärenfels was a German steam cargo liner that was launched in 1921 for DDG Hansa. In 1940, she took part in the German invasion of Norway and was sunk by Fleet Air Arm dive bombers. Her wreck was raised, and in 1941, she was returned to service. In 1944, a Royal Navy midget submarine sank her, killing 11 of her complement. In 1947, her wreck was raised to be scrapped, but while under tow she sank a third time.
Goslar is a partly-submerged shipwreck in the Suriname River in Paramaribo, Suriname. It is the remains of a Norddeutscher Lloyd (NDL) steam turbine cargo ship that was built in 1929. When the Second World War began in 1939, she sought refuge in Surinam, which was then a Dutch colony. When Germany invaded the Netherlands in 1940, her crew scuttled her.
SS Lombardia was one of a pair of transatlantic steam ocean liners that were launched in 1914 in Germany for the Hamburg America Line (HAPAG), sold to a Dutch shipping line in 1916, and seized by the United States as World War I reparations in 1922. United American Lines (UAL) operated her until 1926, when HAPAG bought her back.